


Rock Steady

by Rana Eros (ranalore)



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-17
Updated: 2011-03-17
Packaged: 2017-10-17 08:55:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/175120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ranalore/pseuds/Rana%20Eros
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Toph, actions really do speak louder than words.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rock Steady

**Author's Note:**

> I took prompts in the hopes of coming up with enough flash pieces to qualify for Remix 9. Didn't quite manage it, but I did get some pieces.

Toph engages in the trash talk of the arena because it's what the spectators want. She personally would rather get right down to the fighting, because it doesn't matter how good you are at telling someone you can beat them up, what matters is when you actually do it. The arena master tried explaining to her once that it was a way to gain a mental edge, shake an opponent's confidence. Toph thinks that if your confidence can be shaken by someone talking at you, you shouldn't be in the ring.

Of course, the world's a ring, and you don't get a choice about being in it. And while the Boulder could spend half an hour describing all the ways he'd squash her like a bug and it wouldn't impact her certainty that she was going to take him down, the disdain in a snooty stranger's voice comparing her to somebody's pet is harder to dismiss. She's beaten the Boulder in the arena. She doesn't even know what her weapons are in the kind of skirmish these girls have started.

So she goes with what she knows, drops the ground out from under them, and hears Katara wash them away down the river. Later, Katara calls her pretty, which is nice, but unnecessary. Katara's already proven that she thinks Toph is worth fighting for, and that's all Toph needs.


End file.
